"Jack Mann - Her Ways Are Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mann Jack)

went up and down, winding not too steeply until shoulders of the bare downland folded it into a windless
stillness.


A LONE farmhouse with its outbuildings appeared on an acre or so of flatland, unfenced from the
lane, and hens chirrawked away from the passing car, while an enormous sow with her litter of piglets
eyed the vehicle momentarily and then ignored it. Down and yet down, with the farmstead invisible
behind, and Gees reflected that the man who had measured off that three miles must have ignored the
windings of the lane and marked up the crow-flight distance. Well, the afternoon was young, yet, and in
the placid October sunshine this valley was a pleasant thing, with a mildness in its still air that was also
invigorating.
At the end of the twisted descent the shouldering heights that had enclosed the lane receded, leaving a
pocket of almost-flatness in which were set an inn, with a signboard picturing three hawthorn trees in the
full bloom of MayтАФit was a fairly well-executed piece of work, with no lettering on the board. There
was a general store and post-office building.
Three wires came over the downs to descend to its roof and mark it a telegraph office, and two wires
went on, up the ascent to which Gees faced. There were five cottages, and a bay-windowed, rather
modern-looking house standing by itself to face all the rest. And this, Gees decided, was Troyarbour.
When he got out from the car to inquire the whereabouts of the Hall, the post-office sign confirmed
his belief, and also informed him that Martha Kilmain was the presiding genius there. Since the inn was
closed at this hour he entered the store, and found that the goods for sale ranged from drapery and even
shamelessly displayed lingerie, by way of bread and cakes to cheese, bacon, and hob-nailed boots. It
was quite impossible that a place of such meagre dimensions could hold and exhibit such a variety of
wares, yet there they were, on show. And, emerging from a bacon-festooned doorway, a mighty female
of middle age, a very Amazon of a woman with bare, muscular arms, an utterly expressionless face,
andтАФalmost an absurdity on such a oneтАФa wealth of rippling, corn-coloured hair. Martha herself, Gees
concluded.
тАЬCould you be so good as to direct me to Troyarbour Hall?тАЭ he asked, and made the question as
ingratiating as possible. Tobacco and cigarettes were among the articles purveyed here, and he might
want to overhaul the stock, laterтАФif a case resulted from his interview.
She pointed through the wall of the shop, in the direction which the Rolls-Bentley faced. She said,
тАЬFoller the road, you canтАЩt go wrong.тАЭ Whereon he thanked her and went out again, for the manner of
her reply had indicated that she did not want to be troubled any more.
He drove on. Beyond the valley bottom the lane, ascending again, was a mere cleft between two
massy slopes, with abrupt windings that hid what lay ahead, and the pair of wires from the post-office
carried on poles beside it. I Here, though, it had been cut to two vehicle width at some time. A half-mile
or more of fairly steep ascent, and then the car bonnet faced a pair of iron gates swung on stone pillars,
and beyond the gates was a short drive, gravelled and well-kept, rising gently to the Hall frontage, that
too of grey stone.
Two-storied, with ground-floor windows a good ten feet in height, the structure nested into the hills at
the far side of a little plateau, on which were clumps of rhododendrons, yellow-leaved laurels, and
single-standing monkey-puzzlers and other trees exotic to Dorset. Hawthorns, easily recognisable by
their berries, flanked the drive and made it an avenue, and the place as a whole gave evidence of
scrupulous tendance. Here, it said in effect, is wealth, and one who does not fear to use it.
Gees said to himself as he got out to open the gatesтАФthere was no lodge at the entranceтАФтАЬYes, ten
guineas, for a certaintyтАФand expenses at top level!тАЭ And he knew, as after driving through he got out
again and closed the gates, that he had a distinct prejudice against the owner of this placeтАФwithout
having seen the man.
For a minute or less the scrollwork of the gates themselves held him. Sixteenth or seventeenth-century
Italian work, he felt sure: there was a delicate artistry, a strengthening balance in the work from top to